Barren
by ThyPenOrThySword
Summary: Fifteen years into her happy marriage, Lizzy Darcy realizes that she has no pride left.  A brief look into her head at that moment, as well as what she does after. A series of connected oneshots.  LBFD
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So, please do not rebel against me for this apparently sexist story. Do I agree with the beliefs expressed? No. Do I believe that the characters would? Yes. Otherwise, enjoy. Review and tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy.

Over the years, I have come to hate that title.

I have been married to my husband for fifteen years, and a wonderful fifteen years they have been. Despite our relationship's rocky – to put it quite mildly – beginning, we have developed into the sort of couple so clearly in love strangers on the street wonder if I am his mistress.

To reach this state of bliss, we had to set aside our pride – both of us. We were both such stubborn creatures in our youth. My sister Jane laughs to recall it to this day - the melodramatic agony we each endured as we fought misunderstanding after misinterpretation.

By the end of our honeymoon I had no pride left. I was – I am, still – so in love with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy that I was willing to set aside everything that had defined my youth to become the sophisticated young bride he needed at his side.

I recall my dear aunt trying to explain the causes of pride to me one evening as we strolled through the gardens. She told me that men and women find pride in different ways. Men find pride in their material accomplishments; they want other men to envy them their wealth, property, and woman. Women find pride in what they create – a happy marriage or beautiful children.

Mr. Darcy has never lacked things of which to be proud. He has gold, grandiose properties, and a wife who, despite her lack of connections, is the envy of her peers.

I do not find myself in the same situation. You cannot create a happy marriage unless you lack one, and my husband and I have always had a wonderful partnership. We married for love, and live our life together as a reflection of this.

I realized my situation when, several years into our marriage, I confided in my beloved husband that I believed myself to be barren.

Barren is such a weighty word.

My husband, while genuinely struck by the idea of never raising children of his own – an idea he had always relished – took comfort in the fact that Georgiana could still produce an heir. His pride was secure.

In that instant, however, mine was gone forever.

What was I, as a woman, to be proud of?

I had no children – no legacy to leave the world as proof of my existence.

After years of struggling to contain the pride of my youth, I realized how much I needed that part of me.

I found myself without passion. Everything a woman does is done with the goal of securing a better future for her children. Her education is only to better raise them. Her marriage is only so they have the resources to succeed. Her personal success is only to be preserved and given to her children.

I will never have children.

I will never have a purpose.

Without a purpose, I have no goals, no accomplishments.

No children.

No pride.

Nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Ok, you got me. Oneshot? What oneshot? Clearly this was a chapter fic all along...ahem. Anyway, I was sitting at my laptop staring at my copy of Pride and Prejudice when my email pings to let me know that I have an email - a review for this story (you know who you are). So, I decided to continue it. Mrs. Darcy wanted me to do so - she felt I made her too depressed.

When I was nearing year seven-and-thirty of my life, I realized that I needed something more.

Since that fateful day when I revealed my unfortunate state to my husband, I had spent much of my time in solitude. I had no wish to go about in society and become witness on a more personal level to all those other women my age building up their prides.

They were lionesses: fiercely combating the rest of the world and guarding their young under the figurehead of their proud, if fickle, mate.

In comparison, I was a swan with no nest. I was lovely, certainly, and devoted, but with nothing to call my own. I would just float on my pond all day, singing my sweetly sad songs and plucking my pristine plumage.

My husband, adoring as he was and is to this day, soon noticed the state I was in. I suppose he felt guilty for the times before when he had been blind to my troubles; I never blamed him, of course. Nonetheless, he began trying to keep me busy. He would ask me to look over this document, or revise that letter, or even prepare a brief piece of rhetoric for him to utilize at a later date against some politician or another.

One day, it was June and the roses were blooming the precise shade of a delicate rosé, he called me into his office. A man was there, filibustering a good deal about some legal matter to do with boundaries and fees; I do not recall the details. Looking away only for a moment, my husband pushed a stack of bound volumes at me, requesting that I locate within the volume all passages pertaining to the matter of interest paid upon dowries during the last century and a half.

That project my husband gave me, those dusty old volumes stamped with the seal of the Darcy estate, led me into the next stage of my life. I spent hours locked away in the room that would soon become my study, pouring over the texts and persuading them to reveal their secrets. Soon enough, I found my head filled with knowledge I had never even considered, and within a week I was able to present to my husband not only the source of his problem, but also the answer to it.

For the first time in two years, my husband smiled at me and pressed a kiss to my cheek with complete sincerity. There was no pity in his gaze, no sadness at the thought of what never would be, only pride for the woman he so lovingly called his wife.

In that moment I found that something more. The very next morning, over a light breakfast of two eggs and toasted bread slathered in honey, I asked my husband if I could have access to his study for the purpose of gathering some desired volumes. Assuming I wanted some of the philosophy he enjoyed on cold and foggy days, he simply nodded and continued with his own breakfast.

I still remember his look of surprise when he saw me ordering the maids to place the heavy tomes on economy and law that I had selected in their specified locations. Struggling to hold back a chuckle, he asked me just what I planned on doing with them.

I told him that I would place them in my new makeshift study and proceed to enjoy myself, and with that I walked off.

Those months that I spent voraciously devouring those texts, staining my fingertips with ink and gathering dust in my not yet graying hair, taught me a lesson that would remain with me the rest of my life.

There is a certain comfort in the cold, hard, truth – empty though it may seem.


End file.
